1957 Kailua Advanced Class

Joel S. Goldsmith

181A – Starting the Mystical Life

Good morning.

We may finish this session on Friday that is Wednesday and then Friday or we may go over to next Monday, but, we will know more about that by the end of the week. I’m merely telling you so that, those of you who would like can keep next Monday open in case we go over to then.

This is something that I note in my work, in my contacts with students and through the mail. That often they do not perceive the…I think the most important point there is in a spiritual teaching. You see, metaphysical teachings as a rule bring a very fine and a very quick improvement into the human lives of those that study them. Physical, mental, moral, financial healing of some nature very quickly comes to students, and they believe that that is the end and object of spiritual teaching and it isn’t.

The glorification of a human being is never the goal of a spiritual study. On the contrary, the annihilation of a human being is the goal. When Paul teaches that we need to die daily, he is not playing with language; he’s very serious about that. And when the Master says that, “You cannot find your life until you lose it,” he is stating a spiritual principle.

Now I realize that most of the metaphysical teachings would have us believe that by demonstrating health and demonstrating supply, we are doing the will of God. In the very earliest days of Christian Science, they had no such intent. Healing was only a means of proving that the principle was true. But in those days the principle was the important thing and not the healing. Now what happened, still happens and can happen in our work.

In the earliest experience of our workers, those who do healing, or conduct tape meetings, it is the usual thing, and the pleasurable thing, for them to help in the instruction of those who come to them: explaining principles that they do not understand, helping them with their healing work, and explaining the how and the why, but what inevitably happens is that if the student is at all consecrated that they soon get so busy with healing work that they have no time for teaching, instructing, imparting, in helping, and there again begins the same old round of just sitting in an office, and being an aspirin tablet and a court plaster to those who bring their bodies into the office. That really should not happen in our work.

The metaphysics of The Infinite Way is made up of the letter of truth, and while studying that, it is natural that our human experience improves. Our health does get better, our living conditions, our business, human relationships, but that’s not our goal. Our goal is the mysticism of The Infinite Way, that is, that part of the teaching that brings us into consciousness union with God. That is our goal. If the other were our goal, we would very quickly have a million members. But it isn’t our goal. Our goal is the revelation of certain principles that have been known to the mystics of all ages. It is found in the literature of all peoples, but has only been lived by the few.

I believe I said right on the first day, that we overlook the fact that a child can more readily accept spiritual teaching and spiritual living than the adult. And the reason is that spiritual living is such a simple thing, but it is so simple that we as grownups find it difficult. There is no one truth to which we are limited and yet any one of the real expressions of truth statements, of truth is sufficient to carry an individual completely into heaven if there were no other statements of truth available.

I’ve told students in the past, that probably my whole life work came out of two Bible passages. Now I know plenty of others and use plenty of others and understand plenty others, but it would make no difference to me if they were all wiped out or made illegal, as long as I could be permitted to keep just two. And I intend to keep those two even if they become illegal. Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostril, for wherein is he to be accounted of, and, My Kingdom is not of this world. Now those two are enough for me. They have enough to found the entire Infinite Way work and carry it around the globe. And if there were no others, those two would suffice

There is however, another one that has played an important part in my experience because I have witnessed its miracles with some of our students. It is so simple, and so well known to you that you can hardly believe its importance. Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Now if I couldn’t have those first two statements I would take that one. And I can assure you that there is enough bread, meat, wine, and water, life and resurrection in that one statement to carry anybody into heaven. Man shall not live by bread alone—by form, by that which is in expression, by that which is effect, but by every word, that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Now I have actually witnessed this when temptations have come to me in the form of needing this or requiring that or believing that this was necessary, or that at some particular stage … to return to that one statement and realize, man shall not live by anything that is in this world.